*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Im sure anytime soon the western media will wake up and realise the scale of the problems in Iraq. Joining the dots is apparently far too tricky for our esteemed journos.


More than 40,000 displaced, ministry estimates

More than 40,000 people have been displaced countrywide as a result of ongoing sectarian violence, Ministry of Displacement and Migration officials said on Sunday.

"More than 40,000 Iraqis have been displaced in different areas. They lack supplies and require urgent help," said ministry spokesman Sattar Nawruz. "And with ongoing violence, we expect more families to be displaced in the coming days."

According to Nawruz, numerous families have been forced to leave their homes by militants who want to maintain the sectarian character, either Sunni or Shi'ite, of certain residential areas. "We now have sectarian problems never seen in Iraq before," he said. "Those who suffer are the innocent civilians who live in tents under deteriorating conditions." Nawruz estimated that some 1,000 Iraqis were being displaced daily as a direct result of violence and intimidation. While the government has allocated nearly US $400,000 to support displaced families countrywide, Nawruz maintained that more funds were required to contain the situation.

On 29 March, the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) put the number of displaced at 30,000, noting that the situation could not improve in the reigning atmosphere of violence.

"People will continue leaving their homes due to sectarian violence," said IOM spokeswoman Dana Graber from Amman. "If no urgent action is taken, the displacement will run out of control."

According to IOM figures, more than one million people are now displaced countrywide as a result of three decades of conflict. Graber noted that the situation was generally much worse in central and southern Iraq, where episodes of sectarian violence have been the most frequent. Currently, the IOM is cooperating with the migration ministry and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) with the aim of providing support to thousands of displaced families. The IOM has taken charge of the distribution of emergency supplies, such as food, blankets, cooking utensils and hygiene kits. The two aid agencies are providing affected families with clean water and medical assistance in more than 14 temporary camps countrywide.

According to the migration ministry, about 600 Iraqis have taken refuge in the city of Tikrit, some 175km north of the capital, and another 8,000 in the city of Najaf, about 160km south of Baghdad. All live in makeshift camps and receive assistance from local relief organisations, the IRCS and from residents. Roughly 3,000 people have also fled to the cities of Samawa and Kut, while thousands of others have moved to different districts within Baghdad, where the IRCS has set up facilities and distributed potable water among the displaced. Parks, football pitches, abandoned schools and empty government buildings are being used by families as temporary shelters. Muhammad Kutaiba, spokesman for Iraq Relief for People, a local NGO, says that displaced families still require urgent help, despite government efforts. "With nearly 1,000 people displaced every day, all efforts will be useless if more money isn't invested by the government and international aid organisations don't offer more support," said Kutaiba.

In an attempt to alleviate the suffering of those who have lost their homes, the IOM is currently seeking US $10 million for a 12-month emergency programme.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth the read.......

Deluded

After the fall of Baghdad, three years ago, the United States military began a secret investigation of the decision-making within Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. The study, carried out by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, drew on captured documents and interviews with former Baath Party officials and Iraqi military officers, and when it was completed, last year, it was delivered to President Bush. The full work remains classified, but “Cobra II,” a recently published book about the early phases of the war, by the Times reporter Michael Gordon and Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor, has disclosed parts of the study, and the Pentagon has released declassified sections, which Foreign Affairs has posted on its Web site. Reading them, it is easy to imagine why the Administration might resist publication of the full study. The extracts describe how the Iraq invasion, more than any other war in American history, was a construct of delusion. Frustratingly, however, we now understand much more about the textures of fantasy in Saddam’s palaces in early 2003 than we do about the self-delusions then prevalent in the West Wing.

The study portrays the Iraqi President as a fading adversary who felt boxed in by sanctions and political pressure. Saddam’s former generals and civilian aides—such as his principal secretary, Lieutenant General Abed Hamid Mahmoud, and the former Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz—describe their old boss as a Lear-like figure, a confused despot in the enervating twilight of a ruthless career: unable to think straight, dependent upon his two lunatic and incompetent sons, and increasingly reliant on bluff and bluster to remain in power. Saddam lay awake at night worrying about knotty problems, and later issued memos based on the dreams he had when he drifted into sleep. As the invasion approached, he so feared a coup that he refused to allow his generals to prepare seriously for war. Instead, he endorsed a plan for the defense of Baghdad that essentially instructed his generals to talk with no one, think rousing thoughts, and await further orders. The generals knew that to question their leader or his sons was suicide, so they just saluted. “We’re doing great!” the Minister of Defense wrote to his field commanders on April 6th, as Baghdad fell.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting read.

Another thing is all the times a soldier loses it and locks and loads his weapon on another soldier. It’s something that happens almost every day and it doesn’t really get reported like it should. Ask some of the medics or Doctors and they can tell you a whole lot that the Army keeps locked down and zipped up.

The IEDs are the biggest killer we face next to the snipers and mortar and rocket attacks. It just don’t ever f..king let up for more than a few hours. Every time it starts to calm down there is another car bombing or roadside ambush or explosion. Our patrols and convoys are getting the sh.t blown out of them. I have seen at least 25 serious IED attacks with my own eyes and rolled up on the scene afterwards about 15-20 times.

How the hell can we make it through the next six months if this shit gets any worse? Right now it’s really going to hell and I didn’t think it could get any worse. Now we are seeing all these signs that an uncontrolled civil war or factional conflict is heating up. It has always been close to civil war, but they were directing a lot of the violence our way and kind of working together in some ways to kill us and make us leave.

I’m starting to get scared that we are going to be caught in the middle of something like Somalia or Bosnia and Kosovo. I was involved in both of those piss pot conflicts and the one thing I noticed was that everyone was trying to kill as many people as they could. Iraq is really looking like that kind of sh.t. They are starting to blow the sh.t out of the mosques and churches.

I think we are about to see all hell break loose. All hell already broke loose, but it ain’t sh.t to what is about to come down. I think that in the next few months we’ll be taking so many casualties that it will look like a cakewalk to have only 2300 dead. I said it before we deployed and it was even worse than I could have put in my paranoid mind.

Video shows dead US pilot being abused in Iraq

A video has surfaced purporting to show the burning body of an American pilot being dragged by Iraqi insurgents away from the wreckage of a helicopter. The blurry images were posted on the internet today in the name of the "Mujahidin Shura Council", an umbrella group of five extremist organisations, including al-Qaeda in Iraq, that was reportedly formed in January. The council, which is believed to have been created to sideline Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, said the images were proof that its military wing had shot down the helicopter .

Although the authenticity of the video could not be confirmed, it appeared to clearly show the remains of a US Apache helicopter in the background, as the bloodied body of a man, his clothes on fire, is hauled by a group of men across a field. At one point, the camera zooms in on the man's waist and shows the "Hanes" label of his underwear. No discernible markings are visible either on the helicopter, or on the uniform of the man.

 

[Barking_Mad]

A prominent Iraqi Sunni politician said that some 40,000 Iraqi Sunni Muslims had been killed in sectarian fighting in Iraq since Ibrahim Jaafari took office as Prime Minister

Figures show that Iraq's civil war is equivalent to 11,000 US citizens dying each month

 

[Barking_Mad]

Baghdad mosque attack 'kills 40'

At least 40 people have been killed and 130 injured in an apparent triple suicide bomb attack on a key Shia mosque in Baghdad, police have said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_in_Iraq

 

[Barking_Mad]

Spot the failure.

U.S. Aid in Iraq Now Equal to Assistance in Germany After World War II

A new report by the Congressional Research Service finds that the United States has spent as much on foreign assistance in Iraq during the last three years as it did during the entire seven-year reconstruction effort in Germany following World War II. The report, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, shows that the U.S. appropriated $28.9 billion in assistance to Iraq from FY03 to FY06. In comparison:

U.S. assistance to Germany totaled some $4.3 billion ($29.3 billion in 2005 dollars) for the years of direct military government (May 1945-May 1949) and the overlapping Marshall Plan years (1948/1949-1952). Total U.S. assistance to Japan for the years of the occupation, from 1946-1952 was roughly $2.2 billion ($15.2 billion in 2005 dollars), of which almost $1.7 billion was grants and $504 million was loans.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Update -
Triple suicide bombing kills 69 in Baghdad mosque attack

Immediately after the attack, Iraqi authorities appealed on state television for blood donations. A health ministry source was quoted as saying the bombings killed 69 people and wounded another 130.

Shiite tailor killed southwest of Kirkuk

A Shi'ite tailor was shot dead by gunmen inside his shop in the al-Zab area about 70 km (40 miles) southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

Decapitated body found in al-Shahaimiya

The decapitated body of man wearing a man in an military uniform was found in the town of al-Shahaimiya, 120 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Three security force personal found dead

in the town of al-Suwaira south of Baghdad, police discovered the bodies of three members of the security forces, including an Iraqi soldier and a lieutenant-colonel. The bodies were found with their hands cut off.

US military detains sheikh in Iraq

US soldiers on Friday arrested a tribal leader and four members of his clan near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, witnesses reported. Sheikh Kauan Saleh Sobhi was arrested after his home was raided. Among the arrested was a policeman.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi civilian kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Kirkuk

Speaking to Kuwait News agency (KUNA), one of Kirkuk's police commanders said the kidnapped person was the son of an Arab tribal chief, adding that the abducted was taken to a village named Qaibah.

Two bodies found in Baghdad

Police found two unidentified bodies riddled with bullets in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighbourhood.

Gunmen kill 4 in Iraq

Two men were killed and one person wounded when gunmen opened fire on them near Baquba early Friday. Two others were also shot dead by gunmen in Baquba's northwestern al-Yarmuk neighbourhood. One of them was a medic working in the city hospital.

 

[Barking_Mad]

from the 6th April..........

U.S. soldier killed in Baiji

The latest deaths reported by the military: A soldier was killed Thursday when an explosive detonated near his vehicle in Beiji.

Six additional bodies found in Baghdad

Meanwhile, police in the western Baghdad district of al-Ghasaliya on Thursday discovered the bodies of six unidentified corpses believed to have been shot dead by insurgents. The corpses were taken to a nearby hospital for further investigation.

Tutor killed in Basra

In Basra Thursday a tutor at an art school was shot dead by unidentified armed men. The body of art teacher Salah Abdel Aziz, who was abducted from his home Wednesday was found on a street in the city.

Gunmen kill five civilians in Haswa

Five civilians were killed and another two wounded when gunmen shot at their cars near a police station in Haswa, a town about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Roadside bomb hits U.S. patrol near Ramadi

A U.S. patrol was struck by a roadside bomb south of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. There were no reports on the number of casualties.

Police captain wounded in Kirkuk

Gunmen seriously wounded a Kurdish captain in the Iraqi army in the eastern part of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Sucide car bomb kills seven Iraqis near Fallujah

A suicide car bomb also exploded near a joint patrol of Iraqi army and U.S. troops west of Baghdad, killing seven, one of them an Iraqi policeman, the Iraqi army said. The attack took place in Amiriyat al-Falluja area southwest of Falluja.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Three US troops killed in Iraq

The US military announced Friday the death of three of its troops over the past 24 hours. One was killed in Baghdad Friday by small arms fire. A soldier was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb near Baiji. A marine, was killed in Al-Anbar province Thursday.

Photo from the Najaf car bomb explosion.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Channel 4 Video Report on UK Mercenaries shooting Iraqi Civilians

"We don't know whether it was an innocent civilian or whether that was an insurgent - we don't know, because we never stop". The words of a former security consultant, explaining the story behind the video footage.

 

[Barking_Mad]

No news to see here, move along please.............

Rebels in Full Control of Samarra, Cleric Says

Anti-U.S. forces have spread their control over the city of Samarra, according to a Shiite cleric in charge of Shiite shrines in the city. “Samarra is still in the hands of terror … It is outside the jurisdiction and control of the state,” said Saleh al-Haydari in an interview. A bomb attack in February had badly damaged a major Shiite shrine in the city sparking protests and revenge attacks. The country is still reeling from the consequences of the bombing which have plunged it into political turmoil and sectarian infighting. Haydari said the people of Samarra, estimated at more than 200,000, were powerless in the face of there rebels. “We distinguish between the terrorists and the citizens of Samarra,” he said. U.S. troops have so far mounted two massive attacks to regain control of the city. One of them led to large-scale displacement of the population.

 

[Barking_Mad]

In Secret Unit's ‘Black Room,’ a Grim Portrait of US Abuse

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses. It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Germany to probe 'Iraq spy role'

The German parliament has voted to set up a committee to examine claims that German intelligence agents helped the US during the 2003 war in Iraq. While the German government was expressing opposition to the conflict, agents are said to have helped US planners select targets in Baghdad. They are also said to have co-operated with them in illegal kidnappings.

The government has tried to avoid the inquiry, arguing that it could compromise the intelligence service.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Totals of REPORTED Iraqi dead soldiers, police and civilians. Bear in mind that the Baghdad morgue says it gets roughly 1000 bodies a month.....

Period Total
Apr-06 196
Mar-06 1094
Feb-06 846
Jan-06 780

 

[RhymnRzn]

more blood on the account of Babylon

none of which will go unaccounted for, in the end

 

[Barking_Mad]

What the fuck are we playing at?

IRAQ: Doctors, NGOs warn of high infant mortality in Basra

BASRA, 11 April (IRIN) - As a result of water-borne diseases and a lack of medical supplies, infants born in the southern city of Basra are subject to abnormally high mortality rates, say officials of an international NGO devoted to child health issues.

"For weeks, there were no I.V. fluids available in the hospitals of Basra," said Marie Fernandez, spokeswoman for European aid agency Saving Children from War. "As a consequence, many children, mainly under five-years old, died after suffering from extreme cases of diarrhoea."

Fernandez went on to cite a number of problems facing local hospitals in Basra, which is located some 550km south of the capital, Baghdad. "Hospitals have no ventilators to help prematurely-born babies breathe," Fernandez said. "And there are very few nurses available, so hospitals often must allow family members to care for patients."

Many doctors in the area say that the local health situation has deteriorated markedly since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. "The mortality of children in Basra has increased by nearly 30 percent compared to the Saddam Hussein era," Dr Haydar Salah, a paediatrician at the Basra Children's Hospital, pointed out. "Children are dying daily, and no one is doing anything to help them."

Fernandez added that, for the last three years, the Maternity and Children's' hospital in Basra had not received any cancer drugs from the health ministry. "In all of Basra, a city with nearly two million inhabitants, there's no radiotherapy department available," Fernandez complained.

Khalid Ala'a, spokesman for local NGO Keeping Children Alive, said that Basra hospitals lacked many essential drugs and antibiotics used to treat infections common to the area. "We've asked for help from the Ministry of Health, but they only tell us they don't have money to supply hospitals," Ala'a said. "They tell us we must wait for investment, which could take months."

Health ministry officials, responding to the charges, point to the ongoing deadlock over the formation of a new government. "We depend on the central government for money," said senior ministry official Ahmed Salahdinne. "What we're receiving, we're distributing, according to our capacity, to all areas of Iraq."

According to doctors and NGOs, the primary causes of high infant mortality are unsafe water, diarrhoea, malnutrition, infectious diseases, maternal stress and poverty. In light of these grave circumstances, local NGOs and doctors have called on international aid agencies to help ease the situation.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fourteen killed in Turkish clashes

Turkish troops killed 12 Kurdish guerrillas in a clash in a rugged area used by the guerrillas to sneak into the country from bases in northern Iraq, authorities said today. Two sergeants were also killed in the clash. The fight in the Bestler-Dereler area, just north of Sirnak near the Iraqi border, broke out yesterday when troops had surrounded the rebels and demanded they surrender, and the guerrillas responded with gunfire. Turkish troops had launched an anti-guerrilla offensive in the area following the killing of five soldiers in an ambush by the guerrillas on April 4.

At least 18 Kurdish guerrillas and seven soldiers have been killed in clashes since then. Turkish troops were still hunting guerrillas in the mountainous area, NTV television said. The latest guerrilla casualties included two women, authorities said. Clashes between Turkish troops and autonomy-seeking Kurdish guerrillas have recently intensified in the region with more Kurdish guerrillas reported to be infiltrating into the country from Iraq.

More than 37,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the guerrillas took up arms for autonomy in 1984.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq unrest forces 65,000 to flee

Thousands are living in camps, while others are moving in with relatives. At least 65,000 Iraqis have fled their homes as a result of sectarian violence and intimidation, according to new figures from the Iraqi government. And the rate at which Iraqis are being displaced is increasing.

Figures given to the BBC by the Ministry for Displacement and Migration show a doubling in the last two weeks of the number of Iraqis forced to move. There has been a sharp rise in sectarian violence since the bombing of an important Shia shrine in February. This triggered the current tensions between the country's majority Shia Muslims and minority Sunni Muslims, and hundreds of people have since been killed.

Reports of people leaving their homes because of violence or intimidation, or simply because they no longer feel safe, are becoming more and more common. Some of the intimidation is being carried out by mobile phone. People have been receiving threatening text messages and gruesome videos filmed on mobile phone cameras. In one, a Sunni Iraqi man who entered a mainly Shia neighbourhood of Baghdad is seen being beaten and killed by men in black clothes. The video was then sent out with the warning that this is what would happen to any other Sunni who comes to this area.

The Iraqi Ministry for Displacement and Migration told the BBC almost 11,000 families had left their homes - equivalent to about 65,000, based on the average Iraqi family size. Much of this displacement is taking place in and around Baghdad where the violence has been worst, with many people moving in with relatives or friends.

The Red Crescent says it is now providing food and shelter to about 2,000 families in the capital, some of them living in makeshift camps. But there are also significant movements elsewhere. Hundreds of Sunnis from the overwhelmingly Shia south, have been heading north - many going to Sunni areas in and around Falluja, west of Baghdad. The United Nations still has only a limited presence inside Iraq but officials in neighbouring Jordan say they are trying to secure emergency funds because of expectations this internal refugee problem will grow. Only about $4m is available at the moment but even that cannot be used until certain UN regulations are waived.

 

[laptop]

British brigadier attacks America's John Wayne generals

An important part to being a successful American officer was to be able to combine the "real and acted heroics" of Audie Murphy, the "newsreel antics" of Gen Douglas MacArthur and the "movie performances" of Hollywood actors, the brigadier wrote.

While this might look good on television at home, the brigadier suggested that "loud voices, full body armour, wrap-around sunglasses, air strikes and daily broadcasts from shoulder-holster wearing brigadier-generals proudly announcing how many Iraqis have been killed by US forces today" was no "hearts-and-minds winning tool".

...

As the Iraqi left he said: "Hey, Mr American, next time before you shout so much you should speak to him. He is British - they know how to invade a country."

 

[ZAMB]

Broken promises - why am I not surprised??

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041906L.shtml

Two years ago, the United States government promised to build more than 140 badly needed health clinics in Iraq, bringing basic care to underserved areas outside the big cities. That could have done a lot of good, saving innocent Iraqi lives and building good will for the United States in places where it has grown dangerously scarce. A generous cost-plus contract was awarded to Parsons Inc., an American construction firm, to do the work, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Now, with roughly $200 million already spent and financing from Washington set to run out in less than nine months, it appears extremely unlikely that most of those clinics will ever be built. As The Washington Post reported earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers predicts that no more than 20 clinics will actually be completed - out of 142.

 

[Aldebaran]

British brigadier attacks America's John Wayne generals

What the Iraqi is reported to have said is very true.

I have no shred of a doubt that if this invasion had been done under the lead of the UK, keeping the US Hollywood- imitating trigger-happy Rambo-style culture-barbarian cowboys strictly under UK control, we would see a very different picture.

salaam.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Apologies for the lack of updates. However Ive just seen this article which makes for a confusing read because no one seems to know who exactly was fighting who......No mention of this anywhere on the BBC I might add. Obviously the 'shock factor' or 'body count' isnt high enough.

Conflicting Accounts Obscure Even Identity of Combatants in 2 Days of Street Fighting

BAGHDAD, April 18—As the shooting died down Tuesday afternoon, the tired and frightened residents of Baghdad’s Adhamiyah neighborhood packed their cars and prepared to flee. After two days of street fighting that had kept them locked in their houses, they did not want to see what might come next.

The details of the unusual street battle that began Monday remained shrouded by the fog of war. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers thought they were shooting at insurgents who were trying to ambush them. Local men on neighborhood watch in the predominantly Sunni Arab area thought they were shooting at Shiites who were coming to kidnap and kill them. Residents hiding in their homes, simply praying for survival, could only guess who was fighting whom.

“As far as I know, a group of militants went inside and there was fighting with the residents of Adhamiyah, and later on, the police were involved and the MNF-I were involved,” said Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, referring to Multi-National Forces-Iraq, the official name for foreign troops in the U.S.-led military coalition here. “We don’t have a clear picture of what’s happening there.”

Kadhimi’s account, vague as it was, was about as much as anyone outside Adhamiyah could figure out for certain. With rumor, speculation and fear filling the void of actual knowledge, the conflicting accounts resembled “Rashomon,” the classic Akira Kurosawa film in which a crime takes place and each witness tells a completely different story of what happened.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turkey invading Iraqi territory - not news worthy...........

Iraq expresses dismay at Turkish incursion into northern Iraq

ANKARA, April 26 (KUNA) -- An incursion into northern Iraq by military units of the Turkish Special Forces was reported Wednesday by a Turkish daily.

"The operation was aimed at chasing Kurdish secessionist armed elements near the Turkish border," the paper said.

"Turkish forces were reported several kilometers deep into Iraqi territory as they were chasing Kurdish gunmen in neighboring Kurdish villages," the paper said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zibari expressed dismay about the incursion and summoned Turkish Ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz and asked him to convey to Ankara "Iraq's wish that such incusions be halted." Meanwhile, Iraqi Ambassador in Ankara Sabah Omran on Wednesday paid a visit to Turkish Special Representative in Iraq Oguz Celikkols at his office in Ankara and urged him to put a stop to the Turkish incursions because they could "upset law and order in the entire Iraqi territories." Celikkols is due to convey this wish to the Ankara government.

Iraqi President Jalal Talbani had earlier announced that a 1990 accord with Turkey allowing its forces to enter northern Iraq to a depth of 15 kilometers was no longer valid.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Build your own Iraqi police squad for a little cash

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - It doesn't cost a lot to set up your own death squad in Iraq. Military uniforms, guns and even police vehicles are easily available to all comers in the markets of Baghdad.

In a city where gangs of men dressed as police have killed dozens of people and stolen tens of thousands of dollars, anyone with a modest amount of cash can set up their own fake squad.

At Baghdad's Bab al-Sharjee market, a haven for criminals, anyone can walk into one of about 15 shops selling police and military supplies and buy a police commando uniform for 35,000 Dinars (about 13 pounds) or an ordinary police uniform for $15 (about 8 pounds).

No questions asked, no identity checks. Badges of rank from Captain to Major-General -- enough to ensure no one asks questions on the mean streets of the capital -- go for $2.

"One person came yesterday and took 12 full commando uniforms. Another took 15 army uniforms and ski masks with holes for the eyes," said Tariq, who runs one of the stores.

"I don't care who comes to buy them. As long as they give me the money, I give them the products," he said, adding the most popular items were police commando uniforms.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Four Iraqi police commandos killed by mistake

U.S. forces killed four Iraqi police commandos by mistake on Wednesday in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, a joint U.S. and Iraqi military centre said.

Sixteen bodies found in Baghdad and other cities

The bodies of 16 Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured were found Thursday in Baghdad and other cities, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thirty die in Iraqi city battle

At least 21 Iraqi insurgents and seven soldiers have been killed in fighting in the city of Baquba during which at least 43 insurgents were captured. Baquba was put under curfew after the attacks on Thursday on police stations and checkpoints in the city and surrounding province of Diyala.

At least two civilians also died in the fighting, US and Iraqi sources said.

The attacks raged for "hours", an Iraqi police official said, estimating that between 400 and 500 rebels took part.

Separately, the US military confirmed the death of a US soldier in a roadside bombing on Thursday evening in Baghdad

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq War Costs US taxpayers £180bn

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has refused to provide any specific overall figure for the war's cost. But the Senate is set to approve another emergency spending bill in May, meaning that Iraq will have consumed $101bn in fiscal 2006 alone, almost double the $51bn of 2003, the year of the invasion itself - and all at a time when the federal budget deficit is running at near record levels.

 

[s.norbury]

Iraq has accused Iranian forces of entering Iraqi territory and shelling Kurdish rebel positions in the north http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4960478.stm